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After mumbling a few words about jobs, he heads straight for deficit reduction.

And Medicare "reform". Seniors can't shoulder "entire burden of deficit reduction." Now will haggle over size of burden. Bowles-Simpson BS. Long list of Medicare cuts as starting point for negotiations.

All the same shit he's been peddling before. "The politics will be hard for both sides." "Set party interests aside." Mr. Bipartisanship.

No deficit spending for stimulus, he brags. Some good stuff on science, but requests no significant money for it.

Producing more oil in US, more natural gas, he boasts, in same sentence as "we must do more to combat climate change." "Bipartisan market-based approach to climate change." It's an emergency we'll fight as long as it doesn't cut into our profits, I guess. Then brags about speeding approval of new oil & gas permits.

Real unemployment was 13.6% in January. Real wages have been flat for most Americans for 40 years. We all know there are not going to be any jobs because Obama is pursuing austerity, not stimulus. There will be no new money for R&D, no new money for infrastructure, no new money for Medicare and Social Security, no new money for the Post Office. Obama and the whole Washington crowd will do everything possible to avoid cuts to the Pentagon due to sequestration. Sequestration was, of course, a self-created crisis, one in a series of manufactured Shock Doctrine moments. The target has never been the Pentagon, but softening up Medicare and Social Security for the kill. Obama is reducing troops in Afghanistan, not to end a war, but because he has embraced the doctrine of drones and special ops. Why have a 100,000 troops in Afghanistan when he can have drones and special ops in half a dozen countries?

The easiest way to analyze a speech of Obama is to assume that everything he says is a lie. Comparing the lie to the known policy helps suss out what propaganda lines he will be using in the coming months and where the shiv is likely to go in.

In the scramble to come up with a deficit-reduction deal by Thanksgiving, members of Capitol Hill's super committee appear to have one group squarely in their cross hairs: high-income Medicare beneficiaries. . . .

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has left the door open to asking wealthy seniors to pay more, and public opinion polls show support for the idea. . . .

Current law already requires seniors with annual incomes of $85,000 and above ($170,000 for couples) to pay more than others for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor bills and other outpatient costs. In 2012, the standard premium will be $99.90 per month. Premiums for wealthier seniors will range from $139.90 to $319.70 per month.

About 5 percent of seniors fall into the higher-premium group now. President Barack Obama wants the share of beneficiaries paying more for their coverage to grow over time to one quarter of all beneficiaries. If that were the case today, people with incomes as low as $40,000 a year would be paying higher Medicare premiums, according to Tricia Neuman, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

Great, huh!

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

Interesting. Raising the retirement age looks like an opening gambit. It's been shelved for now, but moving to the chained CPI is as far as I know still in play. And now means testing Medicare. I wonder if the Obama strategy is to use these as wedges that, as Alexa suggests with Medicare, can be expanded over time. Removing the protective aura around these programs before taking an axe to them.

I sat down to listen, carefully placing myself far away from any objects I could throw, and then dozed off. So I woke up and thought ZOMG!!! I didn't keep the pot boiling ... And there were 45 comments! Huzzah!

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